A quick question about Victoria plum trees, if you have one

[BlackAmericanoNoSugar]

We had an espaliered Victoria plum, it took about four years from planting to give fruit and then the fruit was delicious. One year it gave us absolutely massive amounts of fruit and then just died. So now I'm planning to plant another one, but free-standing this time. However, according to one of the websites that I'm looking at "The fruit usefully ripens over several weeks.", which was never our experience. We always found that everything was ripe over the course of a week to 10 days at the most, and then it was done. I wonder if it was the difference between an espalier tree and free-standing one. If you have a free-standing Victoria plum, how long does it fruit for roughly?

Free standing over about 3-4 weeks, with a glut at the end. But plum trees have a lifespan. Ours has now expired and I believe you can't replant on the same spot due to potential honey fungus. Looking to put an apple in once I eventually cut ours down and get the root out.

I'll be planting in a different part of the garden, so it'll be fine regarding potential contamination. It'll be a long wait though, they really were delicious.

We had a free standing Victoria Plum when I was younger - it always ripened in a massive glut for us. Never staggered.

Our neighbour has a massive free standing tree. Always a glut over a couple of weeks in August. They freeze well though.

If your Victoria plum tree - or any plum tree - has a short lifespan, chances are you were growing something on a dwarfing roostock what was inappropriate for what you were asking it to do. This is really common with trees bought from non-specialist nurseries. Chances are your plum was grafted onto something super-dwarfing, which will have made in precocious in bearing fruit, but will have meant it soon died.

It's really worth sourcing a tree from a nursery that will advise you about rootstocks. Ashridge is good.

A name change
I grew up with acres of plum orchards. Two main varieties, one of which would usually be ripe for the last week of August and into the first few days of September and the other of which would be the two middle weeks of September.
We also had a few Victoria Plum trees. They were always July time and, again, had a core crop period of 10 days - 2 weeks. Some of those trees have now died after 30 or so years of cropping. The trees in the two main varieties we had would last 50+ years.
I don't think there is a way of lengthening the crop period. Well, not unless you have a series of trees growing in different, highly regulated conditions.

What were the other two plum varieties in your orchard plumsplums? Which of the three do you think tastes the best? I'm going for Victoria again because I've never tasted shop bought plums that were that good, but I haven't tried any other home-grown variety.

You're probably right about my original tree SarahAndQuack, my gardener bought and planted it for me. I'll buy the next one myself from a tree specialist.

@SarahAndQuack are most dwarf fruit short lived then? I have a few dwarf fruit trees that are growing very well but are only a few years old.

We have an Opal (like a small Victoria) and a Blue Tit (more Gage-like) both on dwarf rootstock, the opal is in a very large tree pot and the Blue Tit planted in the ground. Both are self fertile like the Victoria, but slightly more disease resistant. We got 3 year old trees from Keepers Nursery planted bare root in winter and they produced in the second year after we got them. Their flowering overlaps so they can pollinate each other, but they fruit at different times so we have plums for longer through most of August.

I have a plum tree that also produces gages. A good idea I think.

Yes, tend to be.

I love Victoria plums so very much. Happy memories of my grandparents having gluts when I was a child, and feasting on them till we were sick.

I’ve tried several times to get them established in my orchard, but they always succumb to bacterial canker. As did my gages. I’ve tried lots of different spots, but it’s always the same. I can grow apples and pears, but stone fruit never survive. The canker must be throughout the whole plot. 😢

Shop bought plums are picked way too early, before they are properly ripe so you never have a chance to taste them as they should be. There are plenty of other plum varieties to grow which are delicious - try looking at specialist fruit grower websites, e.g Chris Bowers. It's a real education.

I've had 4 Victoria plum trees in various gardens. They tend to have a few plums ripening ove a couple of weeks followed by a fortnight of everything ripening at once.

The greengage was even worse for it - everything ripe the same week. My goodness, it was a delicious week, but not terribly practical.